Monthly Archives: June 2012

There’s no escaping it… I’m a geek! I’ve added new RAM to my PC, I once got excited by the number of nested IF Statements I managed in one Excel formula (12 for those interested) and, to finish it all off, I LOVE Lego!

To that end, I came up with the inspired (though doubtlessly done several times before) to take a Lego Minifig traveling with me and take pictures of it on front if the amazing sites I come across.

So before I left, down I went to a local shop to acquire one (yes, I have hundreds, but they’re sadly now in storage). For the uninitiated, Lego make a range of Minifigs that are lucky dip, the idea being that you have to collect them all – to hedge my bets, I bought two. I open then up and I’m thrust into my dilemma… which to choose?

I’ve given the options below, hopefully I’ll have enough people even remotely interested in this blog to give their opinions:

The very appropriate for me, stereotypical “bagpiper”

The “could this be construed as racist, I think it’s supposed to be Tarzan”

Seeing the familiar sights of Barons Court, Boston Manor and Hatton Cross could mean only one thing – this is it, next stop Rio via Heathrow!

Like all good adventures, it had to start somewhere, not Southampton or Lisbon, for us the real start was last night. Our first night not staying with family and with no fixed abode. Simple the clothes on our backs (albeit several outfits stuffed into backpacks). When students study these writings in the decades and centuries to come, as they did with Captain Scott or David Livingston, they will doubtlessly all agree that this expedition started in West Norwood!

So, with only three shirts, two t-shirts a pair of shorts and a pair of trousers (and somehow 18kg of other stuff) to keep me going for the next 6 months, we say au revoir to everything we know and are comfortable with, and hello to the unknown!

It was the last leg of our grand tour of the British Isles and it has finally come to an end. Next is a brief stopover in London to check mail and have a final pint of ale for the next six months. This time tomorrow we will be somewhere off the coast of South America at 35,000 ft!

I have to say, although it has only been a couple if hours so far, London has done nothing to change my mind as to why I left!

Rest, I have discovered lately, is a lot like pain killers. Not enough and any temporary effect that it has had is soon undone. Too much, and it very easy to become addicted.

After nearly 3 weeks of lazing around Ireland, I’m coming to the end of my rest rehabilitation. I must stress that this self-proscribed course of rest entails much more than simple long lie ins, naps after breakfast, lunch and dinner and early nights (all of which are of course integral), but can include anything, such as reading a book, walking dogs and watching cows being milked (evidently it isn’t milked directly into the plastic bottles we buy from the supermarket – there is a middle man from Kerry involved somewhere). My latest resting technique has involved pouring over a map, meticulously planning a route for a walk up one of Ireland’s highest mountain. This may not sound like your idea of rest, but fear not, for this is a walk that will invariably not happen due to Ireland’s “summer”*.

Soon my travels will begin proper, with backpacks, long-haul flights, hostels and anti-malarials. But first, there is family to be visited – a real test of one’s R&R. I envisage myself in the foetal position, shaking back and forth on the road to Scotland, via Dublin, Belfast and The Giant’s Causeway. Giving up rest can be hard, but perhaps I’ll be able to pick up some crack on the way.

*Unlike Britain’s, whose summer’s are akin to those of the southern Mediterranean and typically involve droughts and hosepipe bans.